Valerie

@Robinski oh, yes! If you have line by lines I’d love them! I’m here to improve. It is a first draft- but still nice to know whete things don’t flow or make sense.

Thank you everyone for such thoughtful feedback! I am going to cut/ paste it all into my document via liner notes. I wasn’t sure what to do with this piece and now feel that I have a good game plan: shorten to flash levels (will probably cut about 1/3-1/2 of it and then modify ending for more punch.) My biggest worry with my writing is that it only makes sense to me and thus is a hot mess. So, I was surprised and pleased to see that there were so few line by lines. Anyway- thanks again. You made me very happy and gave me lots of ideas on moving forward and things to mull on. Now to go work on my latest story about space pirates!

Once again, I read twice. Thoughts after first reading: It just felt off to me. The castle is being attacked and the main character is behaving really irrationally. It is somewhat saved by the fact that she failed. If she had succeeded in her “rescue” it would have been too much for me for sure. I just didn’t buy into the action. Perhaps current events are playing in here. But storming s castle should be really hard. It is fortified by nature. And if the people have had a warning? It should be about impossible. (Current events show that if the higher ups are. Ot taking things seriously storming a fortification is a bit easier.) Nit picks: “Every second felt like an hour.” for an opening line this felt very weak. I go back to my point from last week about the ending of the last chapter being a bit telly rather than showy. Reading from that to this- it just feels like more of the same. I don’t feel any urgency. I should, but I don’t. I like the ret of the paragraph better. Pacing to pass the time. How is that annoying her cell mates? The catty one from before is silent as she is pacing? In general I wonder about those cell mates and what they think of the black king making an appearance. I also wonder how the king is able to hold the keys- in his mouth? How does he talk? Where does he put them after unlocking her cell door? Surely he doesn’t leave it open cause: cell mates. “Ir stood in a large room as servants arrived with equine brigandine armor lined in leather, followed by a hideous golden collar. Dozens of barrels were being rolled into the room, their lids being removed to show water. The Black King’s personal guard flanked the doorways.’” Why is the collar hideous? Why the water? Who is being show the water? I’m confused. Okay on second reading I’m catching onto the secret passage thing as far as how the army gets in. But the black king knew about it- so why isn’t it guarded? Seems strange to know of a back door and to just leave it open. But if it is a passage- how many resistance members can get through it? Wouldn’t it bottle neck something fierce? “This was totally, utterly, ridiculously stupid. That was family for you.” yes it is. But why is the character acting this way. It is not only stupid it is unlikely. There is a fight. Getting someone out of a fight without getting cross fire is near impossible if you are trying to cross sides. And she would have to cross twice. I just don’t by that Ir wouldn’t get that it is completely futile. Surely there is something else that can be done. Okay if the bl king wanted Ir’s naming power why did he send her away? You’d think he’d do more to get the power. Final thoughts: Even on second reading I don’t buy a lot of the action- both that of the characters and the fighting. I didn’t feel any emotion at the final scene with the death. This is likely due yo me jumping in so late. I was a bit surprised the king was a unicorn. The mind control stuff felt a bit out of place. If he could do that why didn’t he get the names out of her? The fighting also seems to end very abruptly and it is hard throughout to really tell who is winning/ losing. Thanks for the read! It will be interesting to see what happens next. I’m thinking the king uses the sister as a hostage to get to Ir. He feels like the big bad, for sure. edit to add (because my kiddos distracted me( the whole bit with her and the cats and the crossbow and asking of names and taking her places was all kinda confusing and, again, seemed strange in the middle of a battle. As I’m making dinner I’m thinking: well what would I have done if I were her? I’d have gone to the healer and asked what I could do to help- surely the infirmary would get injured people. Maybe I’d then go out with a team to do field rescues- something active that would help. But this is me talking from a kitchen and my family is safe, so who knows.

Super short- because I only read the first paragraph and then a few other random bits. (To see if things settled down.) It was just too much violence for my personal taste. In my job, I hear and see all sorts of horrible things and I have to kind of protect myself in my days off from unpleasant things. so this was not something I could read.

I, too, like the LN. I mean, if we can all read and love R2, why not LN?

Thanks, you two.

Question: I send my email to the group address this morning but haven’t gotten it in my email yet- 3 hours later. I haven’t gotten a failure to deliver notice either. Do I get a copy of the email in my inbox or am I just being impatient?

*slaps head* thanks for the clarification. Glad to know Ir is busting herself out. I was like- noooo I love that part. Good to know it was never in jeopardy.

Here is my post for the week. It is a draft 1.5 (lightly edited for clarity). Any and all feedback welcome, but I have two areas in particular I’d love to have addressed. 1. Length: I literally wrote this last week. It is a weird length. I had set out to write a flash but it got a bit long winded. Does the length work for you? Should I chop chop chop and make it a flash? Or should I flesh it out? AKA: are you wanting more, less or is it just right? 2. As you read, what do you feel like, if anything, the Peony represents? What is it’s role in the story? (I’ve placed what I’m going for at the end of the manuscript because: spoilers.) Again, thanks everyone!

Hmmm... the only problem I have with W (who I assume is her love interest? I don’t have the notes open). Is that it would take away a moment of character empowerment, where Ir manages to free herself. it also seems a bit deus ex machina to me to have a hero swoop in and free her from her sister’s house.

I don’t know... I’m a therapist and sometimes those little old grannies are pretty raunchy- I have stories for daaays.

I read twice. First time just to enjoy and second time for nit picks. Comments after first read: I was intimidated by the chapter number. But I shouldn’t have been. This was amazing! The opening was blah, the worst part for me. I’m normally not a grammar policer, but as I read this right after going over a draft of my own on a comma hunt, I noticed several missing/ not needed commas. There were also several fragment sentences. But the big thing about the opening for me was the slow pace and difficulty in one spot of knowing who was talking when (will point out in nitpicks.) Once the sister starts in on her impassioned speech I was hooked. Overall- excellent after the beginning bit. Since this is a third draft I’ll point out some areas where I thought the wording was weak or passive voice could be improved. These, of course, are super subjective. I’ll put a * before those comments. Nit picks: *but she delayed from knocking. nothing wrong with this phrase, grammar wise, but it felt awkward to me. *she was too busy trying passive voice. Could be described better and passive voice removed. *They had each chosen their paths, in different directions . I really loved the paragraph where this sentence is found. I have felt it myself with relatives and it rang true. But, the part after the comma takes away some of the punch for me. I feel it reads better without the last phrase. A moment later, S... this paragraph is where this opening bit began to drag for me. The descriptions seemed forced- especially as both women are described the same way “Not quite casual, but not quiet fancy...” Once, neither of them cared what the other thought. is this story written in third person with a wide scope or a narrow? Up to this point and afterwards it reads as if it is third limited but this sentence assumes to know what S thinks. “Hi,” I said. “Hi,” said S. * these first two lines read a bit Dick and Jane, beginner reader book for me. They stared at each other. “Come—” “How about I—?” Who is saying what here? I’m confused. Because S was last to speak before but it makes more sense that she is first to speak here. *I feel like this whole exchange could be strengthened with more descriptions of body language. Like I said before, it reads very flat and I feel like you are going for awkward- and it has that- but I feel like I should be squirming from the horrible awkwardness and I’m kinda more like: I think the writer wants this to be awkward. Show me the awkward! “I. asked lightly. Casually...” -*two adverbs in a row. I feel like this makes for weak writing. As before: show me the awkward! Make me as a reader squirm right there with them. I want to feel it. “S said, picking imaginary lint from her sleeve.” better! Give me more of this kinda thing. “Six months ago, she and S would have been chatting up a storm, while I fetched the cutting board and a knife for herself without a thought. Now she felt like all of her joints had turned to rusted iron as she made her way to the kitchen.” -*first sentence, that I struck through, feels repetitive. We already know they had a good relationship before. It also is a break from the awkward tension and I feel like it should be mounting, not a baiting. The second line is marvellous. Take out the first and I feel the passage is stronger. “Oh here...” to this bit: “The world is so big, S.” -* i feel like this settling into a normal routine makes a lot of sense. But! The tension from before is broken. I’m not sure if you wanted to sustain the strain or have it start to melt here. I like the idea of making the characters continue to squirm myself. But I guess I’m kinda evil. The conversation after “...big, S.” is amazing! I loved it. This is where the chapter really shined for me. The tension finally snaps and they argue and it feels good to get it all out and they make up- how sweet. But then the sister locks her in the house- bahaha! Oh my goodness did I LoVe it! And excellent example of a “yes, but...” plot progression. The descriptions showing Ir trying to contain her anger are excellent. Gah! Give me awkward the way you gave me anger! (And the anger and resolution will only be better served here- okay! I’ll stop mentioning it. But this bit proved to me that you have the writing chops to make these characters come alive and really squirm- so I’m wondering why you didn’t?) Big skip here- as getting out of the hut and the gate guard bit were so much fun I just grinned and read through it without noting anything on round 2. “Decay, girl, shut your mouth,” from her neighbors. I fell silent, instead, planning what to say when the guards re-emerged. I love the paragraph this is from. But, again, feel the last sentence takes away. I don’t know if you are familiar with the idea of two types of scenes? Scenes with action and scenes of reflection and regrouping. I like to think of them as upbeats and downbeats in action. This chapter is excellently paced in that way. But the final sentence is a bit of a summary and more telling. I, of course, haven’t read the next chapter- but still my gut tells me it is a better hook without the last line- at least the way it is written. Final comments: there was way less passive voice than I thought at the top so ignore that bit. Not to gush, but why not- let me gush. For jumping into the middle I felt the argument scene was amazing. I loved S. But could feel how Ir thought her naive and vice versa. So so so well played to argue both sides and make both valid. You mentioned it was suppose to be a politics book- well, excellent form here. I look forward to future chapters.

Since only two people have asked for slots so far. May I have a slot? If it all fills up I can back out as there is no rush for me. I’ll do some final edits today but it would be for a 1–2K short piece.

I read it twice. Once for fun and once for nit picks. Thoughts after the first read through: It was a hard read for me. I’ll use the first paragraph as an example of why in the nit picks. Other than my difficulty following the story, the bones are interesting. I like the mix of steampunk and spirituality of machines. The dialogue didn’t feel realistic to me. I’ll leave more detailed notes after my second red through. I was eager to get to dialogue in hopes the story would stick with me a bit better. But it did not. Anyway! On to- Nit picks: The opening line is loooong. The phrase “through the air” is repeated. It does paint a nice visual but I think that same visual could be created with fewer phrases. In general, throughout this prologue I found the exact same phrasing or similar phrasing repeated from one sentence to the next. Also: Is the tugboat steam powered or wind powered? Usually things are one or the other. (Their are motorsailers but I *think* those engines are specially designed to run with the sails. So as I’m writing this I’m realizing my point is moot.) I guess it just made me head scratch to see it written as if both systems were on at the same time. But then again. The only steampunk I’ve read was a book with balloons for flight so... perhaps it is a staple of the genre that I haven’t encountered? Second line: “great” was just used in the opening line and it’s use here stood out. Again, similar wording is repeated. Third sentence: This one was just totally overloaded for my tastes. I’m dyslexic and have a hard time keeping context in my head. So the longer a sentence and the more phrases it has the harder it is for me to comprehend. This third sentence has a lot going on. A “no man’s land” is formed. Then we learn it was formed during a war. A war that happened. hundred years ago. A war where lots of garbage piled up. Garbage piles that were half this and half that. But that were composed of this metal or that metal. All that in one sentence. It was too much for me to keep straight. Fourth sentence: same problem but smaller scale than sentence three. I want to note that at this point I stopped reading on my first go through. I retried reding five times getting only a little farther each time before I decided to just skim and not try to keep track of everything. It took me four days to get through this piece beginning to end. I don’t want this to sound harsh. I don’t mean it to be. I’m saying this because there are just some writers I cannot read in print. It doesn’t make them bad writers, I mean they are published. It just makes me a sucky reader. But! I do know that when I get tripped up a ton, other people usually do too- they just don’t have the same anxiety about reading as I do (think of learning to drive a car and how anxious everyone is and cautious the first few times they drive. For me reading never became second nature. It doesn’t flow or feel natural at the best of times.) If I read something like this that constantly has me changing lanes I get all flustered. A better driver may be able to handle all the frequent and fast lane changes but their pulse rate also goes up a bit. A sentence here or there that I have to read three or four times to figure it out- no problem. But sentence after sentence? It becomes too much for me. And this prologue was that beginning to end. (And I know I have talked about being dyslexic on every review I’ve done. It is just such a big part of reading for me I cannot separate my dyslexia from what my reading experience was like.) “And so the trail continues...” this paragraph of dialogue just doesn’t sound like someone talking to themselves. It sounds more like a way for the writer to tell the reader something. How does the captain know the distress signal came from someone going in just out of curiosity? On my first read through I thought the captain was talking about himself. On second l knew the captain knew exactly why he was going in (to find the person who sent up a distress signal) therefore it could only be a sentence about the young man they found. But as I read on and found this out it then didn’t make sense anymore “Like clockwork” is cliche. Could be described in a way that doesn’t feel stale. Paragraph that begins “a glowing vine.” This snapped me out of my skim for sure. Not what I was expecting, in a good way. Def peeked my interest. But note that in the last 2 sentences the flower blooms twice. Paragraph beginning “But just because...” sudden change to second person was jarring but not in a good way. Is this missing quotes? The last few lines: if the captain is kneeling over the young man. Why can Iris hear what he is saying but the captain cannot? This seemed odd to me. I also didn’t catch when Ir turned back into a flower and I thought the captain told everyone else to stay on the tug? Overall, like I belabored before: it was hard to read, the dialogue didn’t feel natural. But it has a lot of really neat ideas. Comments to address your comments: my reaction to the world and story building- top notch! Very interesting. The characters: not doing much for me. they feel flat, like chess pieces rather than living breathing characters I want to invest in. I also wouldn’t have gotten that this was a fantasy novel from this intro. Yeah, machine spirits should have done it. But I kinda thought it was like an AI thing.

I normally write shorter stuff. But the one novella I wrote and then did a second draft of- well I found prepping for draft 2 on the computer too hard. so I printed that bad boy out. Read it and converted it into a scene by scene outline. As I read I made notes about what I liked/ disliked about each scene and a brief 1-2 sentence summary of what happened in the scene as well as what characters were present. Then I typed up the outline of brief scene descriptions. From there it was easy to cut scenes, move scenes or add in brief descriptions of new scenes to be fleshed out later. Then I printed that out and made sure it flowed well before I started in on the meat of draft two. For my shorter work I find I still do my best editing on paper- and actually take the time to print it out double spaced and attack it with highlighters and colored pencils- what can I say. I grew up without a computer and using a typewriter for editing was the pits so I had to learn the “old fashion way” and I just think better on paper. I usually just retype from the edited hard copy because it is quicker than editing on a screen for me. Plus, I often make further edits as I retype. But we are talking 1,000 to 5,000 words so retyping takes an afternoon or two, not weeks.